I AM INTERVIEWING for a sales job today. I am in this oriental style office building with walls the color of burnt cinnamon and pagodas hanging from the ceiling; they are swaying to the high-whirring of the air conditioning which has us all in goose bumps. There are many of us, young people in uncomfortable blacks, crossing and re-crossing our legs, straightening collars, wetting lips. An Asian girl in the corner in an all-black pant suit looks especially flushed and serious the way she is picking at lint no one else can see and the way her eyes dart down when she notices me looking at her.

The secretary has greeted us all in the same sing-songy introduction, "Hi, I'm Lauren, are you here for the pre-lim interview?" And she reminds me of my old sorority president with her very pink lips and her high-pitched voice. I wonder at her need to shorten the word preliminary, as if it sounds more professional when diced up like that in between bubble gum chomps.

I am growing weary already of the waiting and cold and the forms asking me what kind of marketing I think is the most effective and what are my very best sales-related assets. I scribble tersely, not feeling very gregarious, about how I was an English major and thus a decent communicator but that I know very little about media-related forms of marketing since I don't own a television set. I know nothing about fashion or inside/outside sales, nor am I familiar with the books I Am the Cheese or How to Win Friends and Influence People. I am quite useless really and I, too, begin to pick at the lint that is not on my skirt. I can't believe I'm wearing a skirt.

Eventually a man named Marty greets me. Apparently he is the Man in Charge. He shakes my hand too stiffly. Everything about him is stiff, the way he seems shoved into his own black suit and the immobility of his bald head. We go into his office, yet another orientally influenced room offering more oriental music.

"You look straight from the runway. Nice skirt." He looks at my résumé. "How in the world did you end up working at a grocery store? I've heard all different kinds of backgrounds for people in our company, but this, this is a shocker! You as a cashier in a grocery store? Did you go crazy? So tell me, why are you here?" But I don't really get to answer. He sets my résumé down, neglecting to turn the page. "Are you here because you want to make lots of money? Are you here because you know how to win friends and influence people?" He is sweating. My shoulders are hunched up because I'm so cold. The glare from a lit pagoda shines on his glasses so that I can't see his eyes. Quietly I tell him that I miss having a purpose. I clear my throat and try to speak over the music. I tell him that I used to love school because it gave me deadlines and reading materials and a chance to do what I love, which is write. I tell him I also love people, which is why the market has been tolerable. I tell him that I want a reason again to work hard for something.

He sits up straight and I can see his eyes now. They are shiny but not from the glare anymore. "Do you think you can be a leader? Can you lead a Fortune 500 company? Do you want to go into a management position?"

I nod a few times here and there and my mind wanders. I remember the first time I had sushi. The music is making me think of the sushi restaurant. I thought the whole place so odd and trance-like, the way the servers were wearing all white, like angels but black-haired ones, and that music—like nothing I'd heard before—words strung together to sound instrumental, guitars and violins crashing over the gong-gonging voice. The green wasabi and the pale ginger made me think of fish floating on the surface, just-dead transparent bodies glowing in the murkiness like the end of a lit candle wick. I ate that first bite, fumbling with the chopsticks and the ginger, and found it quite lifeless.

Marty is talking about the entry level, one-hundred percent commission sales job. "It's office supplies," he says, "but you won't stay there. You've got to have your eye on the pie. I see you," he says folding his tight, white hands, "and I see a Weimaraner."

I awaken. "Excuse me?"

"Yes, a Weimaraner. With Weimaraners, you think you're training them," he sits back into his chair, "but they're really training you." He pauses for effect. He is letting this sink in. I can see how pleased he is with himself. "I figure that in two years I'll have everything I want with this company—a condo in Maine, a fishing boat, and a yacht. If you come be Greenwich Marketing's Weimaraner, Mandy, you can have your early retirement. You can be like Nikki Star who made a quarter of a million dollars at twenty-two. She came to us just like you. No more of this grocery stuff. You need to get out there and sell."

I see this image of him telling everyone in the waiting room the same thing. I see the Asian girl nodding just like me. We are all Weimaraners.


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